Month: October 2015

Introducing computer coding in the early grades is now emerging as the favoured strategy for ‘seeding’ entrepreneurial skills in the schools. Since former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg vowed in his famous 2012 New Year’s resolution to learn code, digital industry leaders like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have rallied around Code.org, a movement to get school children to learn about programming. Every year since, in early December, millions of students world-wide have participated in Code.org’s Hour of Code, a week-long event designed to promote the renewal of computer science…

As you may remember from an earlier post, I’m a big fan of Barry Garelick. I appreciate his articles about math instruction for how they’ve informed and influenced my thinking around the ‘math wars’ (try here, here, or here, for instance, for a few particularly rich samples). I appreciate his 2015 book, Confessions of a 21st Century Math Teacher, for how it is able to put me into the shoes of today’s math teachers. I appreciate his cheeky commentaries via social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter for the lessons they continue to teach me about how to directly — though never…

Sixty-seven percent of parents in a recent survey agreed with this statement: “I don’t mind my child spending more screen time if he or she is learning.” And in another survey of parents, 67 percent said that “incorporating more technology in the classroom” is a “high priority.” So where is the dilemma?

The conflict in perceptions arises over the one-third of the parents in one survey disagreeing with the statement: “I don’t mind my child spending more screen time if he or she is learning.” And a similar percentage in the other one responding that more classroom technology is a low, not a…

Originally posted on Pragmatic Education:
Written marking takes up huge amounts of teachers’ time. If the average teacher marks for just over 5 hours a week, that’s 200 hours of marking a year. In a secondary school of 100 teachers, that’s 20,000 hours of marking. Written marking is non-renewable: it’s a one-off. Each written comment…

Sixty-seven percent of parents in a recent survey agreed with this statement: “I don’t mind my child spending more screen time if he or she is learning.” And in another survey of parents, 67 percent said that “incorporating more technology in the classroom” is a “high priority.” So where is the dilemma?

The conflict in perceptions arises over the one-third of the parents in one survey disagreeing with the statement: “I don’t mind my child spending more screen time if he or she is learning.” And a similar percentage in the other one responding that more classroom technology is a low, not a…

As you may remember from an earlier post, I’m a big fan of Barry Garelick. I appreciate his articles about math instruction for how they’ve informed and influenced my thinking around the ‘math wars’ (try here, here, or here, for instance, for a few particularly rich samples). I appreciate his 2015 book, Confessions of a 21st Century Math Teacher, for how it is able to put me into the shoes of today’s math teachers. I appreciate his cheeky commentaries via social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter for the lessons they continue to teach me about how to directly — though never…